Sorry about the technical difficulties this week. Basically, Typepad hates my Mac. I’ll download a new browser and see if it works later tonight. In the meantime, I’m pounding away on Steve’s PC, which is also less than perfect, because he’s set up all sorts of anti-popup controls on his computer, so I can’t upload pictures here. Sigh. How many hours of my life have I wasted sorting out computer quirks?

Aside from the hiccups on the computer, life has also been full of hiccups this week throwing me off schedule with paper writing, blogging, exercising, and all things healthy. Burnt out and disgusted, I cocooned myself in front of the DVD player and watched six episodes of Prison Break yesterday afternoon. Sorry, if I haven’t had a chance to reply to your e-mail.

Some unbloggable stuff at school, which I believe has sorted itself out. And then there’s the hiccups with Ian’s placement for next year. Administrators are trying to shuttle Ian into a "special" school, which they promise us is only temporary. They would rather ease him into a regular school. We want to push him into the deep end. We’ve got an appointment to see this Warehouse for Unruly Children tomorrow. Really not pleased at all.

The school worries that he isn’t ready for a day long program of coloring squares and sitting quietly in circle group. His speech is becoming less of an issue. Listening attentively in big groups of kids is becoming a bigger issue. He’s rather wiggly. So, he’ll need an aide to shadow him and keep him on task in a regular classroom. We suspect that dollars are a factor here, too. I think we have the upper hand here, but things might get a bit messy.

Sitting still all day is hard for most kids, especially immature boys, when they start Kindergarten. More and more parents are holding back their wiggly kids (another option for us). Sunday’s magazine article discusses the latest studies that show that kids with the January birthdays do much better than the October birthdays in school and their early successes carry through into later grades. One buddy of mine is ticked off, because in her upper income town, nearly half of all parents were holding their kids back just to give them an edge on standardized tests. Her daughter with an August birthday could be a 1-1/2 years younger than many of the other kids in her class.

High stakes testing has resulted in the greying of Kindergarten. I suppose it’s a good thing. It’s a self-correcting mechanism to counteract the new pressures on the wee kids.